Knots
by kyokki
Summary: Everything starts somewhere. With the touch of a hand, a laugh, a smile, paying attention to a friend in pain or grief. Sometimes it starts by not saying a word and letting actions speak for themselves. Garrus/(f) Shep, pre-romance.


I had this little tickle in my head after completing Mass Effect 2 again, and this time staying loyal to Kaidan, about what I thought would be a cute little precursor to a Garrus romance option. It's always so hard to resist Garrus and Thane, which is why I usually don't. So to supply myself with some Garrus warm fuzzies, here we go.

Knots

It had become more difficult to come down from the battle high.

Garrus stared down at his hands as they moved over the console. There was still the faintest of trembles in the digits, something he was sure that no one else would notice. Well, perhaps Shepard would notice. She had always found him a little too easy to read. He would look over at her, across the mess table, or from behind cover and he would see her forehead wrinkle, as though there were something amiss that she needed to figure out.

Sometimes he wished that there was something. But he had already laid it out on the table for her. His fingers twitched and a warning beep sounded from the console. Hurriedly he adjusted the calculation and the light that had accompanied the beep turned back to green.

There was nothing else for her to discover, not really. But that did not stop her from coming down here to the main battery after every single mission, asking him if he wanted to talk.

He always shrugged her off, claiming he needed to calibrate. He was constantly calibrating. It didn't help that sometimes that tremor became uncontrollable and he would have to fix everything before it became critical.

Garrus sighed and braced his hands on the edge of the console. Perhaps he was becoming a liability. Again.

At least on the battlefield he was sure and focused, so in tune with his team, with Shepard that he could forget for a while. For a while the spirits of the team he had lost quieted and his aim was a sure and true as ever. Or even better, what with the way Shepard was busily making sure their weapons were modded with the newest and perhaps not entirely legal technology.

Garrus glanced over his shoulder. She hadn't come yet but he was sure she would soon. It never failed, the woman was like clockwork. Perhaps her visit with the salarian had run longer than usual. She seemed extraordinarily fond of the doctor. He realized she found him amusing and didn't mind his seemingly never-ending prattle.

He supposed that she found talking to him satisfying in some way.

Sometimes he wished he could talk to her like Mordin did, but whenever she came in he would remember and he would freeze up and all he could do was make excuses.

He knew he wasn't imagining the disappointment in her voice when she replied, but she didn't press, either.

As if his thoughts had summoned her he heard footsteps in the hall and he turned back around fastening his attention on the thanix cannon.

The doors whooshed open.

He turned. "Shepard, need me for something?" He asked, half hoping she would give him something to do, maybe helping out in the armory or with the shuttle.

"Do you have a minute to talk?" She sounded tired, and faintly hopeful. He looked at her closely. The last mission had been tough. She was vanguard and he felt that made her a bit too prone to throwing herself into the middle of any battle. But they worked well together even if he felt she took too many risks. She disorienting, he picking them off. Their battle tactics adjusted slightly depending on whoever else she decided to take with them but they had a pattern between themselves.

His fingers twitched and he forced his mind back from the field and to her.

Her short hair was slightly mussed, as though she had run her hand through it recently. Her eyes, usually brilliant, were a little dull, and he noted that she stood slightly twisted, as though favoring some unseen injury.

He wanted to ask if she had slept, if she had had a confrontation with one of their disparate squad members. If she had been hurt.

"Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations." Was all he said instead.

There followed a long pause as she looked at him, her forehead creased, her eyes locked on his as though looking for something. He found he couldn't look away. Something in her look, her disappointment evident in her eyes made his insides clench, and he wished he could take it back. But his shadows wouldn't let him.

They didn't want the light. Even if he longed for it.

"I'll…talk to you later, Garrus."

He grunted, "I'll be here if you need me," and turned back to his console, sensing her standing behind him, still watching him with that sad, searching stare.

Then she left, and the doors closed on her light.

He braced his hands on the console and cursed himself and the long night with only his console for company.

And so he was surprised when only a few minutes had passed and the doors slid open again. He turned. He hadn't expected anyone so he hadn't been listening for the telltale footsteps.

It was Shepard. She had her shotgun under her arm and a petulant look on her face. She met his questioning gaze and shrugged.

"Jacob's in the middle of his workout and it's a little distracting." She told him. "But there's something off in the new mod and I need to make sure I get it worked out before the next mission." She hefted the shotgun and looked at it critically, then glanced back at him. "You don't mind if I use your bench, do you?"

He blinked at her. "It's your ship."

She smiled wryly. "Don't let me disturb you."

"Of course not." He nodded stiffly and turned away, listening as she settled at his weapons' bench and made herself busy stripping down her shotgun and fiddling with the components.

He tried to ignore her presence but he couldn't keep from sneaking glances at her profile, her nose crinkled in concentration. And so he noticed that she kept twisting her head and rubbing at the side of her neck, as though something there pained her. Then she would turn back to the gun.

There would be a pause and then she would stop, he would hear the tools set down and glance over, seeing her rub her neck more fiercely, her face twisted in irritation, her nimble human fingers digging into the muscles there. But from the look on her face this action wasn't helping whatever was wrong.

She sighed, picked up the tools and went back to work.

This repeated several times and finally Garrus felt compelled to speak up.

"Shepard, is there something wrong with your neck?"

She paused and glanced over at him, her face sober. But then she smiled a little. "Sorry about that. I hit a little off on one of my charges and I think I torqued something." She shrugged, but couldn't suppress a pained wince at the action. "It'll go away soon enough." Her hand raised again, her thumb rubbing at the offending area. She winced again.

Garrus didn't think, he just moved, leaving his calibrations behind, his hand reaching toward her neck in what seemed like slow motion. Her eyes widened slightly and her hand dropped but otherwise she didn't move as Garrus's fingers touched the side of her throat then slid around.

Her neck was so slender he thought he could surround it easily with one hand. She looked up at him, nothing but trust in her expressive eyes.

"Turn around," He told her softly, his subharmonics evident. "I'll see if I can help with the tension."

She blinked at him, her face as expressionless at his, but she turned around, offering her unprotected neck to him, even hanging her head forward to give his large hand better access as his fingers began to work.

Soft, was how he would have described her skin before he actually touched it. But that didn't really describe how it felt under his hands. Pliable, an odd texture but not an unpleasant one. He moved so he stood directly behind her, his hand cautious at first as he felt the muscles moving beneath the skin. There was tightness there and he tentatively applied pressure.

She made a soft noise and he hesitated. But then she just moved her head forward farther, encouraging him to continue so he suppose that he was doing it right.

His gloves slid slightly as he applied more pressure and he made a small annoyed sound before stripping them off and tossing them on the bench next to Shepard's disassembled shotgun. When his hands returned to the back of her neck the sensations through his fingerpads were intensified and he felt that the tension in her neck had gone up.

"Relax, Shepard." He chided lightly. Her skin felt like velvet under his fingers, but the tendons were drawn tight.

"I know." Her head dropped forward again, but her head was turned slightly toward his gloves. "I've just never seen your bare hands before."

"You must have." She must have, he thought to himself, hadn't she? "Don't worry, I keep my talons well filed down. I won't scratch you."

"I wasn't worried about that." His fingers had started working their magic again and her voice sounded muffled as her chin dropped toward her chest. "I was just curious."

He gently turned her head straight with one of his fingers, then extended both hands over her shoulders so she could examine them. He wondered what he thought when she looked at them. He was standing behind her, after all, and so could not see her expression. He could only imagine it. His hands were, after all, so unlike hers with her many nimble fingers.

He held still as those nimble fingers reached up to one of his hands and carefully slid over the backs of his knuckles, his hand, then over his palm and back to the sensitive undersides of his fingers, testing the textures of the plates and his unprotected skin. He let her explore a second more before gently pulling his hand back.

"Tickles." He grunted, his subharmonics beyond his control. She couldn't know what her gentle touch was doing to him, and he was sure that she wasn't deliberately provoking him with her touch. He cleared his throat when it became clear she wasn't going to pass judgment on the differences she had found. She merely tilted her head forward again and Garrus resumed his work.

It was silent for a while and when his thumbs moved up the back of her neck to the base of her skull Shepard made that small sound again, like a moan.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No, keep doing that." She paused. "Yes, right there. Feels good, Garrus."She said on another groan.

He wanted to make a smart comment about that but he held his tongue, not wanting to tip the balance of whatever this was. Already the air felt strange. Not bad, but it was similar to when they had dropped onto an unfamiliar planet and didn't know quite what they were going to find there. The feeling that if they kept moving into the strange terrain eventually they were going to find something big. A feeling rather like that. He couldn't explain it but he felt it nonetheless.

Her hair, that odd human feature, slid over and around his fingers, and odd but pleasant sensation. And he would be lying to himself if he said that he had never wondered what her…what human hair felt like. Like silk, or some other expensive slinky fabric, he decided.

"You say you tweaked something on a charge." He said instead.

Her response was an unintelligible affirmative.

"And you're sure it wasn't when you head-butted that krogan…what was his name again?"

There was a long pause and for a minute he was sure she fallen asleep. But then she muttered, "Uvenk."

He tried not to laugh at the sullen note in her voice. "Ah yes, right after he insulted your little tank baby."

"I couldn't let him talk that way about Grunt." She mumbled. "A little more to the left. Just like I would stand up to anyone who talked that way about you."

"I'm flattered." He murmured. "And shall definitely keep that in mind should I ever need anyone to defend my…" He nearly said honor, but he wasn't sure he had any of that left. "dignity." He finished.

"Or your sense of style." She murmured, humor in her voice, ignoring his pause. "And yes, I can admit that this _may_ be a side effect of the head-butt. But it had to be done."

"And you're _sure_ you're not part krogan?" That feeling of standing on the edge of something was less now, but still there. "Everywhere else you're the soul of diplomacy. Put you on Tuchanka and you're head-butting people and befriending varren."

"I still think we could accommodate Urz on the Normandy somehow." She was pouting, he knew it, and only half-serious. He hoped she was only half-serious.

"We have a saying back on Earth, Garrus. 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do." She shrugged and he felt her wince. "It means, essentially, that you should be able to adapt to the situation you're immersed in." He moved his hands to her shoulders and started working there, she leaned against his fingers. "By krogan standards I was the very soul of diplomacy every minute that I was on Tuchanka."

"I stand in awe of your ability to be a 'roman'." He told her, pausing in his rubbing to run his hands across her shoulders.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking for a hump."

"Laugh it up." She batted backward at him ineffectually with one hand, but he could tell she was smiling.

He chuckled again and returned to his ministrations. He learned very quickly what she liked and didn't like, when to increase the pressure and when to ease up, just from the sounds she was making and the movements of her body.

It was not too unlike when they were out on the field. He was adept at reading her body language and signals to know where she wanted him to go, or which enemy she wanted him to take out first, sometimes even before she did. That's what made them such a good team. That was why once he was on the Normandy she had taken him on every single ground mission, every trek to the Citadel, Illium and even back to Omega where the rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated.

At least he was pretty sure that was why she wanted him at her side. Or perhaps she wanted him for the sense of continuity. He had been there on the Normandy SR-1. He had left before its destruction, but he had been there at her side during the whole search for Saren. And for her, from what he could gather, all those events had happened a bare few months ago.

He had trouble wrapping his head around it so, he thought as his hands moved down her back, loosening the tense muscles beneath her Cerberus uniform, so he could only imagine what it was like for her. Not only losing two years but waking up at the mercy of one of her deadliest enemies.

The ones responsible for the loss of almost her entire squad on Akuze.

She didn't say anything about it but he knew that was one cause of her tension. He was frankly astonished that she could even bear to work with these people. But he imagined that it was her famous diplomacy at work again. She was once again, as she had said, 'in Rome'.

He also imagined that once this was over, if they survived at all, and she had the barest chance she would tell them all to go to hell. And when that happened he would be right behind her, just as he always was.

As he worked on the tense muscles along her spine she sighed and leaned forward, resting her folded arms on the bench and laying her head down on them. He felt her ribs expand and contract under his fingers as she heaved a heavy sigh and wondered if she'd fallen asleep. If she had he wouldn't wake her. He was under the impression that she, like he, had so little restful sleep. Their ghosts wouldn't allow for more.

So he just stood there in silence, his hands working, his eyes intent, memorizing the layout of the muscles of her back as they rippled under his fingertips.

When he had seen his first human he had thought of them as fragile, unprotected as they were compared to his own species. He couldn't fathom how they could have been a challenge to his race. Since then he had encountered many humans who had astonished him with their strength, in body and will. Like Shepard, like Butler, the human on his squad who was never without a smile, a joke, despite all that he had seen and done before his life had been cut short so tragically.

He had smiled that day. He had been battered and torn, a froth of blood on his lips when Garrus had found him huddled in the corner of his bed chamber, still trying in vain to cover his Salarian companion, Erash. "Hey, boss." He had grinned, his voice rasping as Garrus dashed to him, his assault rifle still hot from dispatching the last of the mercs that had taken down his team. Garrus had cast it aside to kneel next to the human man, trying in vain to staunch the flow of bright red blood from his numerous wounds.

"Yeah," He had coughed, bringing another froth to his lips. "Think I'm done for. Man, Nalah's gonna be pissed at me."

"Stop talking." Garrus had hissed at him.

"Ha." He coughed again and slumped back against the wall. His eyes fell on the Salarian beside him and he reached out and patted the dead man on the shoulder. "We gave you some grief, huh, boss."

"Valuable members of my team. Friends." The blood wouldn't stop flowing even as Garrus exhausted his medi-gel supplies. "Now stop talking."

"Boss."

Garrus looked up, his eyes wild with pain, to find Butler looking at him with compassion in his dark eyes, peace and knowledge that he wasn't going to make it. "Boss…Garrus, thank you. Give 'em hell for us, eh?"

And he had died, still with that gentle, peaceful smile on his bloody lips.

"Garrus?"

His eyes snapped open and he looked down.

Shepard looked up at him. She had turned without his knowing as he was trapped in his memories of that dark, dark day. The day he had failed everything he had believed in. Her brilliant eyes were sad as she clasped his hands in hers. Slowly he allowed his fingers to curl around, to hold back, to hold on. They just sat there for a long moment, not saying anything.

They didn't need to say anything.

Finally Shepard smiled and squeezed his hands once before releasing them. "You know, you're really good at massages."

It took him a second before he replied. "That's a relief." He hadn't wanted her to let go, so he covered the odd feeling with a joke.

"Oh?"

"Now I have a career to fall back on. Do you think the Consort would hire me?"

"She'd be a fool if she didn't." She laughed and patted his arm before turning back to her abandoned shotgun. "Guess I'd better finish this up, it's getting pretty late."

"And I need to get back to my calibrations." He stepped back.

Quiet ensued. Just the sort sounds of machinery and keypads, the slicks as she put her gun back together slowly. It was…comfortable, he thought.

He stared down at his hands, listening to the soft noises of woman behind him.

They no longer trembled.

-Fin


End file.
